The recognition caps a year in which several BFF portfolio companies were acquired and another listed on Nasdaq.
SINGAPORE, June 30, 2026 — Blockchain Founders Fund (BFF), an early-stage venture capital firm backing pre-seed and seed Web3 founders globally, has been named Best Early-Stage Blockchain Venture Capital Fund 2026 at APAC Insider’s Singapore Business Awards, its third consecutive year of recognition by the program.
Pictured left to right: Ahan Rajgor, Investment Team Lead; Mansoor Madhavji, Partner; Aly Madhavji, Managing Partner; Nirav Bakshi, General Counsel; and Hossam Hamdy, Operations Lead, Blockchain Founders Fund.
The award caps a standout year for the firm’s portfolio. Backed Finance, a tokenized-asset platform BFF backed early, was acquired by Kraken; Roundtable (RTB Digital), another early BFF investment, became publicly traded; and portfolio companies including TransFi and Kredete crossed eight-figure annual revenue. BFF joins past honorees including Singtel, Trust Bank, NTT, YouTrip, Antler, and Avis Budget Group among organizations recognized for driving innovation across the region.
“We back founders rebuilding how money and value move, often years before the market catches on, and we stay hands-on from the first prototype to real revenue,” said Aly Madhavji, Managing Partner at BFF. “The proof is in what they go on to build: companies that reach millions of users, cross eight-figure revenue, and go on to acquisitions and public listings. That impact is what we work for, and it is good to see it recognized.”
BFF’s operator-led investment model pairs capital with hands-on company building across business model design, market positioning, go-to-market execution, and strategic hiring. This differentiated approach was again cited as a key factor in the selection process.
“We back founders building the infrastructure that will define how value moves across the internet,” said Mansoor Madhavji, Partner at BFF. “Our job is to compress the distance between a working prototype and real commercial traction.”
BFF’s portfolio spans 200 startups across DeFi, infrastructure, and enterprise blockchain, with the firm continuing to deploy globally into pre-seed and seed opportunities.
About Blockchain Founders Fund
Blockchain Founders Fund is a leading early-stage Venture Capital fund that invests in top-tier founders globally. Backed by a strategic mix of leading firms across Web3 and traditional finance, BFF pairs capital with hands-on company building, curating partnerships, hiring talent, accelerating growth, and helping ensure portfolio founders are well capitalized. The team is comprised of builders and operators who have scaled many of the leading blockchain startups.
SAN DIEGO, June 30, 2026 — Harpoon Ventures , the early-stage venture capital firm founded by former Navy SEAL and Olympic medalist Larsen Jensen, today announced the final close of its oversubscribed Fund IV with $155 million in committed capital, bringing the firm to over $450 million in total assets under management.
Fund IV will continue Harpoon’s strategy of partnering with founders at the frontier, building mission-critical technologies across artificial intelligence, deep tech, and defense. The new fund comes as technological leadership, industrial capacity, and national security increasingly converge.
“The next generation of companies will not just build great products – they will solve problems that matter to our nation’s long-term competitiveness,” said Larsen Jensen. “Harpoon was built to help founders move faster across both commercial and government markets, and Fund IV gives us more firepower to back the teams building what the future demands.”
Harpoon has built a platform designed to help founders convert government adoption into a growth engine. The firm has helped its founders unlock over $1 billion in government contract opportunities, from non-dilutive grants to major programs of record, supporting them as they navigate government, defense, and enterprise markets.
Fund IV builds on Harpoon’s track record as an early backer of breakout critical technology companies. The portfolio counts multiple unicorns such as Aalo Atomics, Astranis, Kodiak, MatX, n8n, Solugen, and Starcloud, in addition to earlier-stage companies building technologies in markets shaped by technical complexity, urgency, and scale.
This fund will additionally support Harpoon’s Black Flag program, backing companies at the earliest stages with capital, mentorship, and go-to-market acceleration. Through three cohorts, the program has invested in 12 companies building across various industries strategically important to national security.
Harpoon’s limited partners include leading U.S. pensions, endowments, and family offices that share the conviction that critical technologies will define the next era of Western competitiveness.
About Harpoon Ventures
Harpoon Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm based in San Diego backing bold founders building critical technologies to restore and maintain Western strategic advantage for future generations. Founded in 2018 by former Navy SEAL and Olympic medalist Larsen Jensen, Harpoon invests across artificial intelligence, deep tech, and defense. Harpoon provides founders with hands-on operational support, including expertise in government contracting, procurement, and strategic partnerships. For more information, visit: www.harpoon.vc.
Led by Georgian, the round is the largest Series A in Canadian defence history and backs Dominion’s drive to revive the country’s tradition of building world-defining technology
OTTAWA, ON, June 30, 2026 – Dominion Dynamics, a defence technology company building next-generation defence systems for extreme environments, today announced a $139M CAD ($100M USD) Series A financing led by Georgian. The round included participation from Valor Equity Partners, Expeditions, Lakestar, OMERS, Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC), Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), Deloitte Ventures (Canada), JDY Capital and existing investors British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (BCI), Bessemer Venture Partners, Garage Capital, Golden Ventures and Silent Ventures. It marks the largest Series A funding round in the history of Canadian defence. Dominion has now raised $169M CAD since launching in June 2025.
“Canada once built technology the rest of the world wanted, then convinced itself that was someone else’s role. We started Dominion to show the capability never left, and this round lets us build at the scale and speed the moment demands,” said Eliot Pence, founder and CEO of Dominion Dynamics.
The financing follows a period of rapid execution and growth. Earlier this year, Dominion deployed its flagship software platform, AuraNet, with the Canadian Armed Forces during Operation Nanook-Nunalivut.
Over two months, across the High Arctic, Canadian Rangers used AuraNet with Dominion’s Arctic-hardened sensors to turn scattered communications and data into a single operating picture, supporting mission tracking, planning, and real-time communications. The exercise was entirely self-funded and an example of Dominion’s approach to working alongside operators to drive iterative development.
Dominion will use the Series A to accelerate AuraNet and Scout, its Autonomous Collaborative Platform (ACP), which extends the reach of crewed fighter planes into austere environments. The raise will also support Dominion in growing its team to over 100 by the end of the year. Dominion has recruited senior engineering talent from Anduril, Tesla, Rheinmetall, Google, and Rivian, as well as veterans of the Canadian Armed Forces.
“Starting in the Arctic means starting with the hardest problem set on Earth,” said Pence. “The engineers joining Dominion understand that technology proven in the world’s toughest environment can succeed anywhere.”
Now in a significant growth phase, the company moved into a 25,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Kanata, Ontario, in June and opened a Toronto development office.
Dominion’s fundraise lands at an inflection point for Canadian defence. Canada has now met NATO’s 2 per cent defence-spending benchmark and has committed, alongside allies, to reach NATO’s new 5 per cent target by 2035. Earlier this year, the Government of Canada released its first Defence Industrial Strategy and established the Defence Investment Agency. Ottawa has also pledged to direct 70 per cent of defence spending to Canadian firms, increase defence R&D by 85 per cent, boost exports by 50 per cent, and create 125,000 new jobs. Together, these initiatives represent the most ambitious defence industrial expansion in modern Canadian history.
About Dominion Dynamics Backed by leading angels, venture funds, and Canadian pension capital, Dominion Dynamics is building the digital backbone for next-generation command and control. Our team draws talent from some of the world’s leading defence and technology companies, combining Silicon Valley velocity, Waterloo-calibre engineering, and a hard national security mission focus. Learn more at www.defendthedominion.com.
Capital to Globally Scale Its Forward Deployed Engineer Model
NEW YORK, June 29, 2026 — GenerativeX, Inc. today announced the close of a $4 million Series A round led by Nissay Capital, with participation from Salesforce Ventures, Angel Bridge, DeepCore, and SMBC Venture Capital.
Since its founding in June 2023, GenerativeX has grown to serve more than 80 enterprise clients across financial services, health sciences, manufacturing, and telecommunications. The company deploys dedicated teams of Forward Deployed Engineers, or FDEs, who are also domain experts and work directly with client teams. GenerativeX’s FDEs write production code themselves, applying their business acumen to quickly deliver working solutions to clients and stakeholders.
Use of Proceeds
1. Market Expansion: Scaling teams in the United States to serve more enterprises across North America.
2. Talent Growth: Hiring senior leaders, consultants, and FDEs to meet growing demand without compromising quality.
3. Acquisitions and Partnerships: Pursuing opportunities that deepen and broaden GenerativeX’s value proposition.
Focus Areas
1. AI Strategy for the Board Level: Helping executives convert AI investment into measurable results.
2. Building In-House AI Capabilities: Helping clients develop AI solutions internally, reducing long-term dependence on external vendors.
3. AI Risk and Security: Enabling enterprises to move quickly on AI while maintaining governance, compliance, and security.
“Coding agents are reshaping how every business is run, not just how software gets developed. What enterprises need is a partner who can take them all the way from strategy to working product. We’ve done that for some of the world’s largest companies, and this round lets us scale that model further,” said Rei Araki, Founder and CEO of GenerativeX.
“We backed Rei’s first venture, and we’re proud to back him again. Most organizations are still figuring out how to make AI work at scale. GenerativeX has already cracked that problem for major enterprises. We believe they’re the team to define what enterprise AI looks like globally,” said Yusuke Ito, Senior Capitalist, and Zhi Li, Capitalist, both at Nissay Capital.
“GenerativeX consistently delivers real business impact for clients. We’ve seen it firsthand through our work together on Agentforce deployments. They are one of the strongest teams bringing enterprise AI to life at scale, and we’re excited to keep building on this partnership,” said Sho Yamanaka, Principal at Salesforce Ventures.
About GenerativeX, Inc. GenerativeX deploys agentic AI solutions for the world’s largest enterprises. Its Forward Deployed Engineer teams work side by side with clients across multiple industries, supporting them from AI strategy and implementation through production code. Founded in 2023, GenerativeX has offices in San Francisco, New York, and Tokyo.
Round led by Marathon with continued support from Bain Capital Ventures and Lightspeed. Trusted by Fortune 500 enterprises and Frontier AI labs, the company defends the fastest-growing workforce in the enterprise: AI agents.
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., June 29, 2026 — Straiker, The Agentic Security Company, today announced a $64 million Series A, bringing its total funding to $85 million. The round was led by Marathon Management Partners, Citi Ventures, Illuminate Financial, and Workday Ventures, with continued support from Bain Capital Ventures and Lightspeed. Gokul Rajaram, founding partner of Marathon, is joining the Board of Directors.
The fastest-growing workforce in the enterprise
AI agents are becoming the fastest-growing workforce in the enterprise. They are automating a growing range of work, from everyday productivity tasks to back-office operations and mission-critical customer workflows. IDC expects more than one billion AI agents deployed across enterprises by 2029, 40x the number in 2025.¹ No workforce in enterprise history has scaled this fast.
Unlike traditional software, agents reason dynamically and act independently across systems on behalf of users. That autonomy is their power, and a new class of risk that deterministic controls were never built to govern. This spring, Reuters reported that attackers manipulated Meta’s AI support agent into changing account emails and bypassing 2FA, hijacking more than 20,000 Instagram accounts without ever breaching Meta’s core systems.2
In adversarial testing by STAR Labs, Straiker’s dedicated AI threat research arm, 36% of successful attacks on coding agents resulted in remote code execution, while 91% of attacks on productivity agents led to silent data exfiltration — with no malware and no stolen credentials.3
Straiker: agentic security for AI agents
Straiker’s founding team brings deep expertise at the intersection of cybersecurity and AI. CEO Ankur Shah previously scaled Palo Alto Networks’ Prisma Cloud business as SVP and GM, while CTO Sreenath Kurupati led AI and security research at Akamai following its acquisition of Cyberfend, the fraud detection company he founded.
As agents gain access to sensitive systems, organizations need to know what agents exist, what they can access, how they behave, and where risk is emerging.
Straiker’s platform delivers this through three integrated capabilities: comprehensive discovery of AI agents across enterprise environments; pre-deployment adversarial testing to surface vulnerabilities and runtime protection that monitors activity and stops threats as they happen.
A shared intelligence layer compounds this value: threats detected in production strengthen pre-deployment testing, while vulnerabilities uncovered in testing harden runtime protections. Straiker’s work with frontier AI labs gives it early visibility into emerging attack techniques, continuously sharpening detection and defense as AI systems evolve.
“Our uniqueness comes from pairing the industry’s most comprehensive agentic exploit dataset with an AI-native security engine purpose-built for autonomous threats. That foundation allows us to secure the next generation of AI-powered enterprises,” said Sreenath Kurupati, Co-Founder and CTO of Straiker.
Company traction
Since launching in 2025, Straiker has become a trusted partner to frontier AI labs and Fortune 500 enterprises, helping them securely deploy both internally built and third-party agents.
“AI agents are getting the keys to real systems and real data, which makes securing them one of the defining challenges of this era. I’m glad to work with innovative teams like Straiker that are focused on getting it right,” said Brad Jones, Chief Information Security Officer.
That traction has translated into rapid commercial growth. In less than a year, Straiker has grown run-rate revenue by more than 15x, reflecting accelerating demand for security built for autonomous systems.
“Demand is outpacing anything we forecast,” said Ankur Shah, Co-Founder and CEO of Straiker. “This round goes straight into product, our STAR Labs threat research, and the global expansion our enterprise customers are pulling us toward.”
“Given their scope and autonomy, AI agents need to be treated like first-class citizens,” said Gokul Rajaram, Founding Partner at Marathon. “Enterprises need a purpose-built solution given the magnitude of the problem. Straiker will be one of the few companies that define how agents are secured.”
About Straiker Straiker is The Agentic Security Company, delivering an agentic-native platform that discovers, tests, and protects enterprise AI agents. Learn more at straiker.ai.
Notes 1 IDC, “Agentic AI to Dominate IT Budget Expansion Over Next Five Years, Exceeding 26% of Worldwide IT Spending, and $1.3 Trillion in 2029, According to IDC,” IDC Press Release, August 26, 2025. (IDC #prUS53765225) 2 “High-profile Instagram AI chatbot breach spotlights security risks of automation,” Reuters, June 3, 2026. 3 Straiker STAR Labs adversarial testing, 2026. Full findings in the STAR Labs agentic threat research report (July 8, 2026). Sign up for the waitlist for the report.
New funding supports development of embodied AI foundation models, commercial deployments and integrated robotics infrastructure, only embodied AI company backed by all four major Chinese internet technology leaders
SHENZHEN, China, June 29, 2026 — X Square Robot, an embodied AI company developing general-purpose embodied intelligence robots and foundation models for real-world environments, today announced the closing of four consecutive financing rounds culminating in a Series C, bringing its valuation to over US$2.8 billion (RMB 20 billion) and positioning the company among China’s highest-valued embodied AI startups.
X Square Robot performing household tasks in a home environment
X Square Robot in real-world deployment at a nursing home
The financing brings together a diverse group of strategic and financial investors, including leading technology companies, industrial partners and venture capital firms. IDG participated in the Series C round, while HongShan and Xiaomi have backed the company in multiple previous rounds. Combined with earlier lead investments from Meituan, Alibaba, ByteDance and Xiaomi, X Square Robot has become the only embodied AI company in China to secure lead-round backing at different stages from four of the country’s leading technology companies.
“Since day one, X Square Robot has focused on in-house development of foundation models, pursuing a challenging but necessary path,” said Wang Qian, founder and CEO of X Square Robot. “Today, our investments in embodied AI models, scalable, model-driven high-quality data pipeline system and real-world deployment are beginning to deliver clear results.”
The company said it will use the funding to further invest in core technologies and foundational research in embodied intelligence, advancing toward general-purpose embodied AI that bridges the physical world and ultimately serves humanity.
Founded in 2023, X Square Robot develops end-to-end embodied AI systems that combine foundation models, robotics hardware and proprietary data pipeline system. Rather than relying on traditional rule-based automation, the company’s approach enables robots to adapt to changing environments and generalize across a wide range of tasks.
Building a Full-Stack Embodied AI System
X Square Robot is building a full-stack embodied AI system that combines foundation models, robotics hardware, proprietary model-driven high-quality data pipeline system and real-world deployment. At its core is a general-purpose embodied AI model designed to enable robots to perceive, reason and act in complex physical environments.
In April 2026, the company introduced WALL-B, an embodied AI foundation model built on its World Unified Model architecture. Unlike modular VLA approaches that connect separate vision, language and action components, WALL-B trains perception, language, action and physical prediction within a unified network, enabling stronger multimodal understanding, spatial reasoning and continual learning from real-world interactions.
The company has also open-sourced WALL-OSS-0.5 and WALL-WM, extending its unified approach to robot manipulation and world modeling. WALL-OSS-0.5 achieved over 80% autonomous completion on four of 17 real-robot tasks without post-training, while WALL-WM introduces event-level prediction by aligning language, vision and action data around meaningful events, enabling stronger cross-modal learning and physical-world prediction across reasoning, manipulation and generalization tasks.
To accelerate model development, X Square Robot has built a scalable, model-driven data pipeline spanning automated data collection, cleaning, annotation, quality control and augmentation. Combined with real-world deployment, the system enables rapid model iteration while creating high-quality datasets for complex and long-tail scenarios.
Real-World Deployments Already Underway
X Square Robot is deploying its model and hardware stack across household, industrial, and logistics scenarios. Among these, household settings represent one of the most complex and important testbeds for real-world deployment.
In this area, the company has partnered with 58.com to launch an AI-powered cleaning service in Shenzhen and Beijing, where robots work alongside human cleaners in real residential environments. Since May, X Square Robot has also launched the “X Family Member Program,” where robots live with users’ families for up to one month as household companions, responding to a broader range of everyday needs. Together, these initiatives bring embodied robots beyond staged demos and into real homes and everyday life.
The company believes these real-world deployments create a continuous feedback loop in which operational data improves model performance, helping accelerate progress toward general-purpose embodied intelligence.
“As AI moves beyond digital experiences into the physical world, progress will depend on close integration between models, data and robotics,” Wang said. “We’re building that foundation so embodied AI can become part of everyday life.”
X Square Robot develops general-purpose embodied intelligence robots with high-precision manipulation capabilities. The company is building foundation models for the physical world, integrating models, robotic hardware and scalable, model-driven high-quality data pipeline system. Its robots are designed to perceive, reason and act across long-horizon tasks in home and everyday environments, research and education, logistics and warehousing, and industrial operations.
New funding will accelerate development of Digital World Models and large-scale simulation environments for long-horizon AI agents
SAN FRANCISCO, June 25, 2026 — Patronus AI today announced a $50 million Series B led by Greenfield Partners and unveiled its Digital World Models, a new class of large-scale simulation environments designed to help AI systems train, evaluate, and improve across complex digital workflows. The round included participation from existing investors Notable Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Datadog, Samsung, Factorial Capital, Gokul Rajaram, and leading AI and software executives.
Since launching less than three years ago, Patronus AI has become a leader in AI evaluation, simulation infrastructure, and reliability testing for frontier AI systems. Today, Patronus AI works with the majority of the world’s leading frontier AI labs and hyperscalers. The company’s revenue has grown more than 15x over the past year, reflecting growing demand for infrastructure that helps organizations train, evaluate, and deploy increasingly autonomous AI systems. The new funding brings Patronus AI’s total capital raised to $70 million.
Patronus AI was founded by AI researchers and engineers with backgrounds at organizations including Meta AI, Amazon AGI, and Google. The team’s experience spans LLM evaluation, AI alignment, fairness, and embodied agents, providing the technical foundation for the company’s work in simulation and evaluation infrastructure.
From Static Benchmarks to Simulated Digital Worlds
The first phase of generative AI was built on static internet text and benchmark leaderboards. But as agents move into longer, more complex workflows, the limitations of that approach are becoming increasingly clear.
An agent managing a customer escalation, navigating enterprise software, conducting research across thousands of documents, or debugging production infrastructure cannot be trained through benchmark memorization alone. These systems need dynamic environments that resemble the digital world they will actually operate inside.
Patronus AI is building what it describes as Digital World Models — language diffusion world models that are designed to scale the creation of simulation data to train and evaluate AI agent actions across complex digital workflows.
The company builds simulation infrastructure that allows AI systems to train on realistic software, research, communication, and enterprise workflows. Instead of optimizing for narrow benchmark performance, the goal is to produce agents that can operate reliably across ambiguous, long-horizon tasks.
“Benchmarks were never the destination,” said Anand Kannappan, CEO and co-founder of Patronus AI. “Static evaluations tell you whether a model can answer a narrow question in a controlled setting. They do not tell you whether an agent can navigate ambiguity, recover from failure, or operate reliably across long, unpredictable workflows. That requires environments where systems can practice, adapt, and accumulate experience over time.”
Introducing World’s First Digital World Models
Patronus AI believes simulations will become one of the defining infrastructure layers of the AI era.
The company’s research focuses on generating ecologically valid environments where agents can encounter edge cases, recover from failures, and improve through repeated interaction. This includes simulation tooling, evaluation systems, and diffusion-based Digital World Models that can generate increasingly sophisticated training environments over time.
The approach is designed to address one of the largest unsolved problems in AI: scalable oversight.
As AI systems become more capable, manual review becomes increasingly insufficient. Patronus AI’s long-term vision is to build systems capable of supervising, evaluating, and governing increasingly autonomous agents at scale.
“Manual review does not scale once AI systems begin operating across millions of workflows and decisions,” said Kannappan. “That is why simulations matter. They create environments where AI systems can be tested, improved, and supervised before failures happen in production.”
New Funding Fuels Research and Expansion
With the new funding, Patronus AI plans to expand its research organization, grow its engineering team, and invest in the compute and infrastructure required to train and run Digital World Models at scale.
“Patronus AI is tackling one of the most important infrastructure problems in artificial intelligence,” said Itay Inbar, Partner at Greenfield Partners. “The future of AI will depend on systems that can learn and operate reliably in complex environments, and simulations are becoming essential to making that possible.”
About Patronus AI
Patronus AI is a simulation and evaluation infrastructure company building Digital World Models to accelerate the next generation of AI agents. Founded by former Meta AI researchers Anand Kannappan and Rebecca Qian, the company develops large-scale simulation environments, evaluation systems, and reliability infrastructure that help AI research and engineering teams to build and deploy trustworthy AI systems.
SpaceWERX TACFI award advances Orbital’s path toward AI-driven factories for extreme environment materials — targeting the critical U.S. capacity gap in components that underpin missile defense, hypersonics, space vehicles, and nuclear energy
CAMPBELL, Calif., June 25, 2026 — Orbital Composites, Inc. (“Orbital”), a Campbell, CA-based advanced manufacturing company, today announced a $1.9 million Tactical Funding Increase (TACFI) contract award from SpaceWERX, the innovation arm of the U.S. Space Force. The contract funds continued development of Orbital’s robotic additive manufacturing (AM) platform for extreme environment materials — components engineered to survive conditions that destroy conventional parts: temperatures exceeding 3,000°C, high-velocity combustion gases, and repeated thermal shock cycles.
3D Printed Rocket Nozzle from Orbital Composites
Orbital S – Multi-Robot Additive Manufacturing Platform for Advanced Composite Rocket Nozzles
The award reflects growing recognition across defense, space, and energy sectors that the United States faces a structural shortfall in its ability to manufacture the advanced materials that underpin next-generation systems. Extreme environment materials — used in rocket nozzles, heat shields, hypersonic vehicle structures, jet engine hot sections, and nuclear reactors — have historically been constrained by prohibitive cost, 12- to 18-month production cycle times, and limited domestic capacity. Orbital combines robotics, advanced materials, and physical AI to streamline manufacturing of extreme environment materials.
“This work addresses a critical barrier to the rapid scaling of manufacturing for high-temperature rocket nozzles to serve the U.S. warfighter. Our initial goal is to eliminate the supply constraints on solid rocket motors that have long limited what the warfighter can field — and this award is a concrete step toward that objective. This is also about restoring U.S. manufacturing dominance in materials that are foundational to our national security and economic competitiveness. We are grateful to our SpaceWERX, AFWERX, and AFRL partners for their leadership in making that possible.”
— Amolak Badesha, Chief Executive Officer, Orbital Composites.
Extreme environment materials sit at the intersection of some of the most urgent national security and strategic industrial priorities. Solid rocket motors, hypersonic vehicles, low-cost missile defense interceptors, nuclear microreactors, and space vehicles all depend on components that can be produced faster, cheaper, and in greater volume than current methods allow. Orbital’s technology is designed to serve these markets from a single scalable manufacturing platform.
“Extreme environment materials are the bottleneck in some of the most critical systems the U.S. fields, and today’s manufacturing methods are too slow, too costly, and too capacity-constrained to meet what the moment demands. We are building toward a future where that constraint no longer exists — where AI-driven factories take in a design file and produce a mission-ready part, at operationally relevant cycle times and cost.”
— Cole Nielsen-Cole, Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Orbital Composites.
Orbital is working with defense prime contractors, U.S. government program offices, and commercial space and energy providers to scale qualification and production. The company is investing in manufacturing capacity, program qualification, and the physical AI systems that underpin its autonomous production vision.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Air Force, the Department of War, or the U.S. government.
About SpaceWERX
SpaceWERX, the innovation arm of the U.S. Space Force and a division of AFWERX, partners with startups, small businesses and nontraditional vendors to accelerate commercial space technologies for Guardians. Headquartered in Los Angeles, SpaceWERX connects industry innovation with defense needs to deliver capabilities faster. In partnership with Space Systems Command’s Commercial Space Office, SpaceWERX bridges innovation and acquisition to accelerate capability adoption. In fiscal year 2025, SpaceWERX awarded more than 300 contracts totaling $510 million. For more information, visit spacewerx.us.
About AFWERX AFWERX, the innovation arm of the Department of the Air Force and a division within the Air Force Research Laboratory, partners with small businesses, startups and nontraditional vendors to address challenges facing Airmen and Guardians. Headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, AFWERX strengthens the defense industrial base by expanding access to innovators, building partnerships and accelerating the transition of critical technologies to operational capability. In fiscal year 2025, AFWERX awarded more than 1,000 contracts totaling $1.37 billion and achieved 438 Phase III transitions valued at $8.1 billion. For more information, visit afwerx.com.
About Orbital Composites, Inc. Orbital Composites is building AI-driven factories for extreme environment materials. Physical AI is at its core — intelligence that runs the full loop from design to production, uniting autonomous robotics with mastery of the most advanced materials to turn mission requirements into mission-ready parts. Its robotic AM platform produces high-performance components — including nozzles and heat shields — at an order of magnitude faster cycle time and lower cost than conventional methods. Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Campbell, CA, Orbital works with the U.S. Space Force, Air Force Research Laboratory, and defense prime contractors to transition next-generation materials manufacturing from advanced development into operational capability. For more information, visit orbitalcomposites.com.
The Chicago Venture Summit, Future of Health, will convene investors, founders, academics, researchers, and corporate leaders on October 19 and 20, 2026
CHICAGO, June 25, 2026 — Today, Mayor Brandon Johnson and World Business Chicago announce the return of the Chicago Venture Summit on October 19-20, 2026, with a new focus on healthcare and life sciences. The gathering boosts innovation and growth capital ecosystems in Chicagoland’s right-to-win industries.
World Business Chicago | Chicago Venture Summit: Future of Healthcare 2026 Sponsors (as of June 25, 2026)
“Chicago has always been a city where big ideas are born and put to work, from the small business owner in one of our 77 community areas to the researcher, clinician, and founder developing the next breakthrough,” said Mayor Brandon Johnson. “The Chicago Venture Summit: Future of Health is about making sure Chicago-made innovation is connected to the growth capital, corporate partners, and customers it needs to scale, creating good jobs, stronger businesses, and better health outcomes across our city.”
The Chicago Venture Summit: Future of Health will bring together investors, startup founders, university researchers, corporate executives, and civic leaders to examine how health technology is shaping business growth, patient care, research commercialization, and job creation across the region.
Hosted by World Business Chicago (WBC), the Chicago Venture Summit is designed to connect emerging companies with sources of capital, customers, and strategic partners. The 2026 summit will focus on one of the region’s key growth sectors, where Chicago’s concentration of research institutions, hospitals, universities, corporate headquarters, and startup talent creates opportunities for investment and collaboration.
Since its launch in 2014, the Chicago Venture Summit has convened participants from Chicago, the Midwest, and national innovation markets. The 2025 Future of Food edition brought together investors, startup CEOs, university innovators, and corporate executives focused on food, agriculture, and related technologies. It also featured a curated portfolio of startups designed to connect early-stage and growth-stage companies with investors and business partners.
Startup portfolio applications are expected to open in late summer 2026. Selected companies will receive access to summit programming, investor introductions, and growth support through World Business Chicago’s innovation and venture programs.
The Chicago Venture Summit: Future of Health will be held at 167 North Green Street by World Business Chicago board member, Shapack Partners, in Chicago’s Fulton Market District, with over 500 carefully curated guests, including founders, investors, corporate executives, and public sector leaders.
“Chicago’s future will be shaped by the entrepreneurs who are building new technologies, creating new industries, and solving meaningful challenges,” said Mark Tebbe, World Business Chicago Board Member, who also serves as longtime Chair of the WBC Innovation and Venture Advisory Council. “A thriving startup ecosystem is not only a source of innovation, but it is also a catalyst for inclusive economic growth, talent development, and long-term competitiveness. When we invest in local founders, we invest in Chicago’s capacity to reinvent itself and lead in tomorrow’s opportunities. The Chicago Venture Summit’s continued success, now including its inaugural Future of Health edition, reflects the strength of our entrepreneurial community.”
The healthcare industry is the Chicagoland region’s fastest growing by employment, with a workforce of over 552,000. $1.19 billion in growth capital was invested in Chicagoland’s healthcare-related startups, accounting for nearly 20% of all growth capital raised in Chicagoland in 2025 alone. As one of the region’s economic growth engines, the Chicagoland healthcare sector leverages specialized pharmaceutical manufacturing, strong talent pipelines from universities and medical schools, affordable lab space, and robust funding for research and development. As the nation’s third-largest healthcare hub, the Chicago region is positioned well to compete with top hubs and capitalize on technological disruptions in areas such as bioinformatics and AI. Learn more via the “2025 State of the Economy” report by the WBC Research Center: https://worldbusinesschicago.com/allnews/state-of-the-economy-2025/
“Our economic playbook, Chicago 2050, is designed to answer one of the central questions facing our city and region; that is, how do we grow our economy in a way that creates jobs, attracts investment, and strengthens Chicago for the long term,” said Phil Clement, President and CEO of World Business Chicago. “The Chicago Venture Summit: Future of Health is that strategy in action. It connects Chicago-made innovation to the capital, customers, and corporate partners that can help companies scale here and contribute to a stronger regional economy.”
World Business Chicago is grateful to its many sponsors, partners, and collaborators who bring the Chicago Venture Summit to life each year. Presenting Sponsors include the Grainger College of Engineering of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, MATTER, Microsoft, Portal Innovations, and Shapack Partners. Innovation Sponsors include 1871, Business Leadership Council (BLC), the Chicago Biomedical Consortium, ChiForward, Clique Studios, the Greater Chicagoland Economic Partnership (GCEP), and TechNexus Venture Collaborative. Venture Sponsors include 2Flo Ventures and PACE Healthcare Capital. Additional sponsors will be announced in the near future.
“We are grateful to the board companies and partners whose support reflects one of Chicago’s clearest advantages: dedicated civic leadership,” said Charles Smith, Vice Chair of World Business Chicago. “In Chicago, business, health care, capital, research, and civic leaders do not operate in isolation. They come together to build the market. For investors, that is a distinct Chicago value proposition: access to major institutions, corporate customers, research talent, founders, and civic partners in one connected ecosystem.”
The Chicago Venture Summit: Future of Health is part of World Business Chicago’s broader innovation and venture strategy, which also includes programs such as Startup Chicago, Chicago Day at SXSW, ThinkChicago, and previous Chicago Venture Summits, including the Future of Food, Future of Climate Tech, and Future of Logistics.
In collaboration with the Chicago Biomedical Consortium (CBC), World Business Chicago serves as an official Supporting Partner for the Midwest BioBuilder’s Summit on November 12, 2026. The Summit, led by the CBC, facilitates connections among academics, entrepreneurs, and startups with investors, operators, and industry leaders who can help advance their innovations. With a pronounced emphasis on life sciences and biotechnology investment, the BioBuilders Summit echoes the Midwest’s industrial spirit, highlighting companies and platforms dedicated to translating breakthroughs into market-ready products and building the infrastructure needed for the next era of biotechnology. You can learn more at www.chicagobiomedicalconsortium.org.
In collaboration with WBC board member, University of Illinois System, the Grainger Engineering Tech Startup Challenge, hosted by The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, will be held during the Chicago Venture Summit on October 20. Bringing together engineering-powered startups from leading universities across the Midwest and beyond, the competition provides entrepreneurs with a live stage to pitch their ventures to prominent investors, entrepreneurs, and industry leaders in Chicago’s thriving tech ecosystem. Participants compete for significant funding while gaining direct exposure to the networks and capital. The Challenge reflects The Grainger College of Engineering’s commitment to translating cutting-edge research into real-world impact and to positioning the Midwest as a hub for the next generation of deep tech innovation. You can learn more via https://landuyt.illinois.edu/programs/tech-startup-challenge.
To learn more about attending, supporting, or partnering with the 2026 Chicago Venture Summit Future of Health, visit https://worldbusinesschicago.com/chicago-venture-summit/ or contact [email protected]. Registration for this invite-only investor and startup conference will open in the coming weeks.
ABOUT WORLD BUSINESS CHICAGO: World Business Chicago drives inclusive and equitable economic development throughout the city’s 77 community areas, focused on high-growth sectors: food production, transportation, distribution and logistics; manufacturing; healthcare and life sciences, and our local innovation, startup, and venture ecosystem. World Business Chicago leads corporate attraction and retention, workforce and talent, community impact, and promotion of Chicago as a leading global city and region. Supported by a council of 300+ local leaders, World Business Chicago’s portfolio of innovation & venture programs includes: the Chicago Venture Summit series, Startup Chicago, and ThinkChicago. Follow World Business Chicago on LinkedIn for news and announcements on corporate relocation and expansion; industry and ecosystem growth, U.S. and world rankings, and economic development.
CHICAGO LEADERS ON THE CHICAGO VENTURE SUMMIT: FUTURE OF HEALTH
“The potential of healthcare and life sciences innovation is only realized when the right entrepreneurs, investors and industry leaders are working together to solve the same problems. Chicago is home to one of the most dynamic healthcare communities in the country and the Chicago Venture Summit is a powerful platform to showcase that. We’re proud to be a premier sponsor and look forward to the conversations and collaborations that will come out of this year’s event.” – Steven Collens, CEO, MATTER
“Technology has the potential to power advancements in every industry, and nothing is more central to each of us & the communities we live in than our health. This year’s Chicago Venture Summit will bring together all the ingredients in one place to build the future of health – pairing the awesome opportunities empowered by technology and innovations from startups & industry leaders with the collaborative & industrious spirit of Chicago. We’re excited to be part of the summit and can’t wait to see what we can achieve together as a community.” – Tony Surma, CTO, Americas Enterprise Partner Solutions, Microsoft
“The Grainger Engineering Tech Startup Challenge brings together some of the nation’s most promising deep tech entrepreneurs to tackle real-world challenges with breakthrough solutions. Partnering with the Chicago Venture Summit connects them to Chicago’s thriving innovation ecosystem and the investors positioned to help them scale — creating real economic impact for the Midwest.” – Jed Taylor, Assistant Dean for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, The Grainger College of Engineering, Landuyt Executive Director of the Landuyt Center for Entrepreneurship
“Chicago has emerged as one of the most dynamic life science ecosystems in the country and events like the Chicago Venture Summit: Future of Health reflect how that momentum continues to build. Portal’s mission is to invest in and build early-stage ventures and connect them with the resources and relationships needed to accelerate their life-changing technologies, while activating innovation ecosystems that support that trajectory. Those ecosystems take committed institutions, investors, and industry partners all pulling in the same direction. That is what makes Chicago special, and it is exactly the kind of energy we are honored to be a part of and help catalyze. We look forward to connecting with the innovators and leaders who are shaping the future of healthcare for patients.” – John Flavin, Founder and CEO, Portal Innovations
“For two decades, TechNexus Venture Collaborative has been at the center of Chicago’s tech and venture community — connecting founders, investors, and corporations under one roof at TeamWorking by TechNexus and backing companies across the categories shaping tomorrow’s economy. Health and wellness is one of the most exciting areas we’re seeing right now, with entrepreneurs reimagining everything from how we move to how we’re cared for, and Chicago is producing some of the most compelling companies in that space. Events like the Chicago Venture Summit: Future of Health are a reminder of why this city continues to attract serious talent and capital — and why we’re proud to be part of the ecosystem fueling it.” – Fred Hoch, Co-founder and General Partner, TechNexus Venture Collaborative
“Healthcare is one of the most important opportunities for innovation over the next decade, and Chicago is uniquely positioned to lead. Our region combines world-class healthcare institutions, leading corporations, breakthrough research, and entrepreneurs building solutions to some of the industry’s biggest challenges. We’re proud to support a summit that brings together the people, ideas, and capital building the future of healthcare.” – Betsy Ziegler, CEO, 1871
“The CBC’s mission is to translate university innovation into the next generation of homegrown Midwestern biotech products. We are proud to host our BioBuilder’s Summit, which reflects the Midwest’s industrial spirit and spotlights biotech innovation in therapeutics and devices, in November following WBC’s Venture Summit, which celebrates promising advancements across the healthcare industry. The CBC is committed to advancing Illinois’ position as an emerging hub for Life Science innovation, and we’re proud to stand alongside partners who share that vision.” – Michelle Hoffmann, PhD, Executive Director, Chicago Biomedical Consortium
“Technology is a powerful force that can improve access and quality of care for communities across the world. 2Flo Ventures is a proud investor in emerging healthcare technologies that have the potential to transform the lives of underserved communities. We support determined founders who have spent their careers dedicated to improving our quality of care. As a Chicago-based firm, we bring together hundreds of strategic partners to support these innovations in a way only Chicago can – with authenticity and dedication to systemic improvement.” – Ibraheem Alinur, Vice President, 2Flo Ventures
“The next decade of digital healthcare will be defined by companies that make care more accessible, affordable, and human. And many of them will be built where healthcare actually operates: in the middle of the country, close to payers, providers, and patients. That proximity drives better products, faster commercialization, and more durable businesses. PACE backs these founders with disciplined capital and hands-on support. The Summit helps accelerate that momentum, and we’re proud to support it.” – Julia Monfrini Peev, Managing Partner, PACE Healthcare Capital
